Announcing SWMoniTOR! - Peer-to-Peer Live Combat Parsing

[havenasp]

Also, any way to parse out specific stuff like Kills/Deaths, Wins/losses Damage/Healing, for PvP? AND the ability to export to csv format for tables in databases? I'd love to start up a stat ranking site for PvP players, sometime in the near future. Just to test the waters Edited May 25, 2012 by havenasp

[Gaktar]

@Gaktar, what kind of Computer case is that setup you have (if that's yours on that website) it's sweeeeet lol

 

Mountain Mods made in good ole' Oregon. I've got the U2UFO model but they've got even bigger cases if you really want to take up a lot of desk space Their online case design tool on the website is pretty fun to play with.

Edited May 25, 2012 by Gaktar

[havenasp]

Mountain Mods made in good ole' Oregon. I've got the U2UFO model but they've got even bigger cases if you really want to take up a lot of desk space Their online case design tool on the website is pretty fun to play with.

 

 

Cool thanks i'll go check it out i like that style

[AnorienNightwish]

As of tonight Avast! is picking up a virus/trojan (Win32:Malware-gen) in the swmonitor application. I've run the application many times before this and had no problems at all, so it has to be one of the recent virus definitions that picks it up as a false alarm. I also ran the virustotal.com check on the "swmonitor.exe" and I get 17/42 showing it as a somekind of trojan. It's also the only file that seems to be "infected".

 

virustotal check - swmonitor.exe

Edited May 25, 2012 by AnorienNightwish

[Gaktar]

As of tonight Avast! is picking up a virus/trojan (Win32:Malware-gen) in the swmonitor application. I've run the application many times before this and had no problems at all, so it has to be one of the recent virus definitions that picks it up as a false alarm.

 

Thanks for recognizing this as a false positive report (more details on the SWMoniTOR website FAQ about false positives for those that are concerned). I'd also recommend reading this blog (not written by me) that describes how anti-virus companies cause a big headache to small developers. I encourage anyone that gets a false positive report to send in the reported file (typically SWMoniTOR.exe or SWMoniTORClient.exe) to the maker of your anti-virus software so that they can verify it is not harmful and can adjust their detection methods to be more accurate. Unfortunately most companies don't really generate their own detection methods and just subscribe to common lists or use automated systems to generate signatures without actually verifying the file is actually malicious.

 

Keeping your computer safe is extremely important but using a anti-virus program that doesn't allow whitelists of known good software or is overly aggressive on detecting/cleaning usually causes more problems than it's worth (which is unsafe since it eventually leads to the user uninstalling the anti-virus software).

 

The two programs I use are Microsoft Security Essentials (comes with Windows) for the basic stuff and another excellent program called Malwarebytes (there are other good programs out there as well). I can scan anything that I download with Malwarebytes, schedule a whole computer scan when I'm not using the computer and it even blocks known websites that carry trojans/malware (which is the most common vector for most computer infections today). Malwarebytes also has very good detection methods with no false positives reported even though I've been using it for over 5 years. It's detected and cleaned up other computers that I've been called in to fix just fine though so I know it works on the real positives as well .

Edited May 26, 2012 by Gaktar

[Gaktar]

We've released a new version of the SWMoniTOR launcher program to fix all of the false positive anti-virus reports from the past few days. The fix was as simple as using a newer version of the internet library (which is open source) instead of the original version that came with the compiler. Just goes to show how misinformed quite a few anti-virus software programs are when they use generic internet library code to "identify" a virus/trojan instead of the actual virus/trojan code itself (which of course didn't exist in MoniTOR).

 

Virustotal.com scan (0/42 results)

 

Below are the patch notes for this installer/launcher only release (client application is still the same version as the previous release). If you have been having problems running MoniTOR because of your anti-virus software, please redownload and reinstall the installer from the SWMoniTOR website.

 

Launcher

 

Updated the internet library used by the MoniTOR launcher to a newer version which should no longer generate false positive reports in anti-virus software. To update to this version download and re-install the main installer from the SWMoniTOR download page.

[Black_reven]

i have tested this parser and when people start working (raiding) the numbers (dps) show for a split sec, than go back to zero. also heals chart doesn't even show up correctly, anyone else having this problem?

[Gaktar]

i have tested this parser and when people start working (raiding) the numbers (dps) show for a split sec, than go back to zero. also heals chart doesn't even show up correctly, anyone else having this problem?

 

I haven't yet seen this in any testing of MoniTOR. One thing that might be going on is someone may have their timezone settings corrupted on their machine so the times are coming in really far off from the rest of the group (thus messing up the encounter durations). We did get a report for some incorrect timezone information from one user so this might be a more common "problem" on some machines that we'll need to find a way to work around. The current plan is to provide a timezone selection in the configuration rather than using the Windows APIs to do the conversion for us (which is where the problem is).

[Gaktar]

A quick note to everyone that we're still working on the next release for SWMoniTOR that includes quite a few changes in the connectivitiy area to handle those users with problematic routers (symmetric NATs) and some other nice additions to functionality as well.

 

For those that are testing the 1.3 update that is currecntly on PTS, we also did some testing with the new log format and the good news is that the current SWMoniTOR parser already works with the new format (although the UI doesn't yet do anything with the new per-enemy IDs). We will be including some cool support for these new ID numbers soon as well as supporting any other changes that Bioware does to the logs. Hopefully more new combat log features are on the way from Bioware .

[DyasAlue]

A quick note to everyone that we're still working on the next release for SWMoniTOR that includes quite a few changes in the connectivitiy area to handle those users with problematic routers (symmetric NATs) and some other nice additions to functionality as well.

 

For those that are testing the 1.3 update that is currecntly on PTS, we also did some testing with the new log format and the good news is that the current SWMoniTOR parser already works with the new format (although the UI doesn't yet do anything with the new per-enemy IDs). We will be including some cool support for these new ID numbers soon as well as supporting any other changes that Bioware does to the logs. Hopefully more new combat log features are on the way from Bioware .

 

I get the impression bioware added the id's because of parsers like this. I foresee them adding more things to help with the hide stuff etc. I just get impression they are ok with raiders making and using these.

[Maestrodomus]

Hi there, we love the program and had our guild switch over from MoX following the first release. We haven't had any connection issues for weeks (raid wide), but I understand some guilds are still experiencing these problems. I was wondering what types of improvements we may see following connection fixes? Although the standard overlays for damage, heals, and threat are fantastic, the time stamped log leaves a bit to be desired; especially when compared to soemthing like ACT.

 

Are there plans to spruce this up? It would be wonderful to see a clearly understandable log of outgoing damage to players along with debuffs, damage type, etc. I know some of that is there now but it's pretty clunky. It's also not very clear what you're actually viewing when you select different tabs and double click names.

 

As always keep up the great work.

Edited June 19, 2012 by Maestrodomus

[Indicah]

My guild keeps having an issue where the bars in the dps, heals, and threat charts aren't displaying the proper number. We're just seeing a decimal number less than one. Something like (0.5) The bars are changing size, so it's tracking some some way, but it's not giving us DPS, HPS, or TPS numbers. I'll try to get a screeen shot of what we're seeing.

[DyasAlue]

My guild keeps having an issue where the bars in the dps, heals, and threat charts aren't displaying the proper number. We're just seeing a decimal number less than one. Something like (0.5) The bars are changing size, so it's tracking some some way, but it's not giving us DPS, HPS, or TPS numbers. I'll try to get a screeen shot of what we're seeing.

 

Sounds like percentage showing as a decimal. Do all your numbers add up to 1?

[Indicah]

Sounds like percentage showing as a decimal. Do all your numbers add up to 1?

 

They do not. In our raid last night, we had 7 folks using SWMonitor, and decimals during a hardmode Zorn/Toth fight were 0.6, 0.5, 0.4, 0.4 and some on. I think the total was somewhere around the 3 or 3.5.

[lynspottery]

I recently downloaded and installed the MOXParser. I have used ACT in the past and it was very easy to use and extremely slick in its presentation of the facts. This MOXParser leaves a lot to be desired.

 

I've not been able to figure anything out with it and want to see some sort of chart presentation...just showing numbers that don't mean anything is frustrating. I also found out that we cannot automatically see the entire group's output either. Not very user friendly.

 

I gather the SWMoniTOR is similar but from some of the commentary, it looks as though I'll have similar issues with trying to figure out the details in it as well.

Edited June 19, 2012 by lynspottery

[Gaktar]

They do not. In our raid last night, we had 7 folks using SWMonitor, and decimals during a hardmode Zorn/Toth fight were 0.6, 0.5, 0.4, 0.4 and some on. I think the total was somewhere around the 3 or 3.5.

 

I've had something like this reported before and I suspect it's due to an invalid timezone setting on one of the player's computers (thus making the duration of the fights realllllly long). We've got a fix for this for the next release but if you could look at the details to see if it looks like some of the times are an hour or several hours off that would help confirm this is what is happening.

[Gaktar]

Hi there, we love the program and had our guild switch over from MoX following the first release. We haven't had any connection issues for weeks (raid wide), but I understand some guilds are still experiencing these problems. I was wondering what types of improvements we may see following connection fixes? Although the standard overlays for damage, heals, and threat are fantastic, the time stamped log leaves a bit to be desired; especially when compared to soemthing like ACT.

 

Are there plans to spruce this up? It would be wonderful to see a clearly understandable log of outgoing damage to players along with debuffs, damage type, etc. I know some of that is there now but it's pretty clunky. It's also not very clear what you're actually viewing when you select different tabs and double click names.

 

As always keep up the great work.

 

We're getting very close to releasing a new build that should fix a lot of the connection issues that some players are having. There are also plans to spruce up the graphical output and analyzing tools as well. In my previous raiding game (EQ2) we used ACT a lot so I'm quite familiar with what it did and we'll be making MoniTOR do all of that and much more.

 

In the meantime though, you can use MoniTOR to join all the combat informat together and then output the raid data to combat log format (it's the save to .TXT option on the Parse Viewer in MoniTOR) and then import that into ACT or even better upload it to Ask Mr. Robot to see something with a bit more graphics.

[lynspottery]

I've had something like this reported before and I suspect it's due to an invalid timezone setting on one of the player's computers (thus making the duration of the fights realllllly long). We've got a fix for this for the next release but if you could look at the details to see if it looks like some of the times are an hour or several hours off that would help confirm this is what is happening.

It is going to be a bit rocky for a bit I think since most of our guild mates are spread over several different time zones, not to mention we have folks in Australia also running with us.. at least 14 hour time difference. It would be nice if it could at least be able to adjust that or use the server time as its base.

[Gaktar]

It is going to be a bit rocky for a bit I think since most of our guild mates are spread over several different time zones, not to mention we have folks in Australia also running with us.. at least 14 hour time difference. It would be nice if it could at least be able to adjust that or use the server time as its base.

 

MoniTOR adjusts all of the incoming data to your timezone so when you are examining the logs it should show times within the same timezone (yours). The problem we have fixed is related to the Windows APIs we were using to adjust the times from local to UTC (for transmission to other users) and then back from UTC to local (when receiving data from other users). These functions appear not to work properly on some systems (corrupt registry or something else) and so the times are not converted properly. The next release of MoniTOR will be using an alternate method to sync up the times.

[Indicah]

I've had something like this reported before and I suspect it's due to an invalid timezone setting on one of the player's computers (thus making the duration of the fights realllllly long). We've got a fix for this for the next release but if you could look at the details to see if it looks like some of the times are an hour or several hours off that would help confirm this is what is happening.

 

This is what I suspected. We've got guildies in three time zones (Easter, Central, and Mountain) who were all in the raid last night.

 

Eagerly anticipating the next release, as this is definitely my favorite of all the parsers out there! Would love to see direct upload to AskMrRobot from the parser, as well.

[DyasAlue]

Now if I can just convince my raid to use it.

[Sameria]

MoniTOR adjusts all of the incoming data to your timezone so when you are examining the logs it should show times within the same timezone (yours). The problem we have fixed is related to the Windows APIs we were using to adjust the times from local to UTC (for transmission to other users) and then back from UTC to local (when receiving data from other users). These functions appear not to work properly on some systems (corrupt registry or something else) and so the times are not converted properly. The next release of MoniTOR will be using an alternate method to sync up the times.

 

Could you program in a call to an NTP server and stamp it with GMT time? Then locally, convert to local timezone. Not sure if this will work, or if it is even something that is remotely possible.

[lynspottery]

Due to the recent screen freezes and delayed talent firing after hot key presses, I have decided not to use this. I never know what or when I will experience these server problems. Not my machine as I have found, but apparently it is tied to the game engine in some manner I am not able to figure out.

 

I do not have anything in the back ground running when I play SWTOR to make sure I do not contribute to any game play issues. So far I only have mumble and nothing else.

 

Until the memory leak and odd game freeze, key press delays are addressed and fixed, I shall refrain from using any third party add on for any reason.

[Gaktar]

I've noticed some pauses and lag myself since the server transfers so I doubt this is related to running MoniTOR or other 3rd party processes. We worked very hard to make MoniTOR as efficient as possible during combat in terms of both memory and CPU usage (on my computer it rarely gets above 1% CPU usage). Thanks for trying MoniTOR though and good luck.

[TrooperSev]

My guild recently did a test run for SWMonitor the other night. While functional, we didn't see enough to convince us to use it over askmrrobot.com. And yes, I know that you can upload monitor logs to askmrrobot.

 

The problem we saw was with the utility. There was no real reason to run live combat logging in its current form. The dps overlay was nice, but we found that our dps'ers were focused on the tool and not the fight. Granted, dps'ers like seeing their numbers, it just wasn't good for my guild. The tps overlay was pretty useless. We were kinda hoping that it would work in a who's on top of the aggro table, but it was pretty much just a who's doing the most tps. The hps overlay was also unneeded. The healers don't need to know their hps, they just need to make sure noone dies. And with hps still being affected by overheals, it isn't accurate.

 

We also noticed some inaccuracies in the parser itself. Some players fight durations would be longer than others and sometimes each players program would show different numbers. In one fight, as the tank, I had a -75.6 tps. Not sure how that got calculated.

 

I wanted to post this just so the developers could look into some changes or just fixes that my guild thought would make it better. Also, there needs to be a video maybe explaining the different functions of the program. As it stands, we had to figure everything out on our own, which turned off a couple of our raiders to begin with. (sidenote - we did read the join group faq and that part worked fine.)